How long did the Uror fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2025 and 22 December 2025: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,832 hectares (58.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Uror (5,872 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

SS · South Sudan · 2025-12-15 → 2025-12-22

Uror fire, 15 December 2025 Uror

Out · last detection 22 Dec 2025, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2025 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,832 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 324th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 226 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area: 5,832ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 15 Dec 2025 – 22 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 15 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 98; in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Dec 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1516171922

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high

40km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,055 ha in 2016, 738 ha in 2017, 2,155 ha in 2020, 1,836 ha in 2021, 405 ha in 2022, 488 ha in 2023, 1,292 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,731 ha that had burned before.

405 ha Uror fire, January 2022 5,050 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Uror where it started

5,872 ha reached on 13 Dec

0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
15 Dec	32.8 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Dec	32.0 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Dec	33.0 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Dec	31.9 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Dec	33.1 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Dec	33.9 °C	21 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Dec	34.1 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
22 Dec	33.8 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
23 Dec after	34.5 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
24 Dec after	35.7 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
25 Dec after	36.3 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 Dec after	35.4 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Dec after	35.3 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Dec after	34.2 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Dec after	34.7 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Dec after	33.0 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Dec after	33.3 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
1 Jan after	34.8 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 8 Dec 2025

After · 29 Dec 2025

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³

Days over the guideline12 days

PM1063 µg/m³

Optical depth0.67

WHO 15

13141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 98Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Uror fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2025 and 22 December 2025: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,832 hectares (58.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Uror (5,872 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South Sudan (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned